A coordinate measuring machine is used to measure a three-dimensional profile of a workpiece.
The coordinate measuring machine may include a mount for a workpiece, a touch probe being brought into contact with a surface of a workpiece, and a relative motion mechanism enabling a relative motion of the mount and the probe in three axial directions such as X-axis, Y-axis and Z-axis directions (see Patent Literature 1: JP 2011-107058 A).
The relative motion mechanism may include a portal frame movable in the Y-axis direction with respect to the mount, a slider movable in the X-axis direction along a horizontal beam of the portal frame, and an elevating head movable in the Z-axis direction with respect to the slider, the probe being attached to the elevating head.
The coordinate measuring machine may use, instead of the above-described contact probe, a non-contact laser probe capable of non-contact measurement of a workpiece with a laser beam (Patent Literature 2: JP 2008-209420 A).
In this case, the coordinate measuring machine is preprogrammed to perform a predetermined measurement operation on a workpiece so that the measurement operation is automatically performed with an improved operating efficiency.
A typical coordinate measuring machine sometimes requires an additional operation for changing the attachment state of the probe depending on a profile or a portion being measured of the workpiece.
For instance, a posture of the probe needs to be changed to measure a less visible portion or the inside of a hole.
Such a change in the posture of the probe necessitates alignment (i.e., qualification) of the coordinate measuring machine and the probe in the changed posture, reducing the operating efficiency.
To prevent a reduction in the operating efficiency accompanying a change in the posture of the probe, a measurement process is reexamined depending on the profile of a workpiece in preparation for measurement. Specifically, an optimal measurement process capable of minimizing the frequency of changing the posture of the probe is determined and programmed in the form of a macro to perform the measurement process.
However, these complicated works, such as reexamining the measurement process and creating the macro, are required for each of workpieces with different profiles, so that the operating efficiency in the profile measurement of a workpiece as a whole still needs to be improved.